What Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Bloggers Are Saying About Roe v. Wade

The 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling is an occasion for both pro-choice and pro-life women to reflect. In the BlogHer community, we have a wide range of opinions and beliefs on this very controversial issue. While many of us already have our own strong opinions on the issues of abortion or the sanctity of life, this is also an opportunity to have a dialogue with those with different opinions.

Here are just a few of the highlights of what our bloggers are thinking today. Take a moment to read some of these excerpts from women of many different positions on the spectrum.

A Time to Speak Everyday Epistle writes about how her mother’s unplanned pregnancy led her to be pro-life:

The year is 1970. Unwed motherhood isn’t worn as a status symbol by celebrities. Single parenting isn’t the norm. There are no support groups or pregnancy centers. No 3-D ultrasounds. Abortion is illegal.

If her pregnancy had happened three years later in 1973 when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States, I wonder if that young woman would have chosen to abort her baby. If so, you wouldn’t be reading this.

When does life begin? I suspect it is a process requiring a complex engagement between both the being and its world, much like a story requires a reader. Otherwise, the words remain only a series of unintelligible scratches on a page. If we accept that a story has different meaning for a different reader, we may understand that no person will approach either their soul, or a zygote’s, identically.

Killing a baby is not the moral equivalent of having a glass of wine. Simply drinking a glass of wine or even Scotch hurts nobody but perhaps yourself, depending on your views of alcohol. Killing a baby is murder. The burden of proof here is on those who say the unborn child isn’t a human being to prove their point, but this has turned out to be such an illogical position that those on the forefront of the pro-abortion movement have long since given it up and freely admit it’s a human being, just not one worthy of all the rights of any other human being.

Access to birth control, safe abortion services, and reproductive care is critical for both lesbians and straight women—we never know when we, or someone we love, might need it. Without full control of our bodies, we do not have full equality.

I am pro-life; probably more pro-life than most. Life is good. Life is precious. I wish all people to have a full and meaningful life. I’m in favor abolishing death sentences; I wish for an end to war. I’m against suicides, assisted or otherwise. I want no one to go hungry, or lack the resources to get a meaningful job. I want no one suffer from bullying, or feel the need to bully another.

I pray no woman seeks abortion as an answer to pregnancy. At the same time, I’m not naïve; I know that not all pregnancies are planned and not all babies are born perfect. That said, I believe personal struggle is the root of human strength; as Buddha expresses in his “Four Nobel Truths,” life means suffering.

We'd like to invite you to respectfully share your thoughts or links to your blog posts in the comments below.

Recent Posts by Grace Hwang Lynch

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